A general purpose algorithm for recreating the original MP3 is possible for certain definitions of "possible." One such algorithm is a brute force technique of generating every MP3 of the correct length and comparing their output with the wav file. It would complete in exponential time. In this case, that would probably mean "many orders of magnitude longer than the age of the universe". You'd have to be certain that your decoder produced output the same way as the one that decoded that wav file otherwise you'd wait an awful long time just to get 42.

This is probably what I would call a Hard Problem . If I had a dollar, I'd wager it's NP-complete, but I can't prove it (in the mathmatical sense). If you find a solution to an NP-complete problem that finishes in polynomial time, you would become Very Famous . I'm on the P != NP side of the fence though, so good luck. :-)

edit: Doh, need to type faster or write shorter posts.

This post has been edited by phong: Aug 21 2003, 02:59

--------------------

I am *expanding!* It is so much *squishy* to *smell* you! *Campers* are the best! I have *anticipation* and then what? Better parties in *the middle* for sure.http://www.phong.org/